A world divided.

A queendom without an heir.

An ancient enemy awakens.

The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction—but assassins are getting closer to her door.

Ead Duryan is an outsider at court. Though she has risen to the position of lady-in-waiting, she is loyal to a hidden society of mages. Ead keeps a watchful eye on Sabran, secretly protecting her with forbidden magic.

Acrss the dark sea, Tané has trained all her life to be a dragonrider, but is forced to make a choice that could see her life unravel.

Meanwhile, the divided East and West refuse to parley, and forces of chaos are rising from their sleep.

When I heard about this being written and released I was excited, I enjoyed her other series and I was looking forward to this. Since it is such a long book I waited till I knew I have time to read it.

I finally had the time and I picked it up, I figured there is some word building and such but h boy was I in for a surprise. There was so, so much and it was just overwhelming.

So I figured since I have a free credit on audible I get the audio book and maybe that will help….. it did not . I was just so confused for about the first 200 some pages.

There was just so many people and even more things happening on different spots in their world.

I did finally start catching on for the most part and ended up enjoying it, well more than I thought I would. I switched between audio and hardcover so I got it done fairly quickly.

The audio in my opinion was okay, often the dialect or accent was super thick and string and it made it hard to understand and I had to go back to the book to check to make sure I didn’t miss much.

Overall, I thought it was okay, definitely way too much world building for me though, also some things were overly described and others not at all if a little.

I liked most of the characters/dragons and the relationships in this book

I have a hard time rating this book, I liked some and the aspect of the book but I disliked the intro into the book/ world. It was long and confusing.

So I think I go with 2.5 ★ maybe at some point I will reread it and enjoy it more.

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I finished this a while ago, I really struggled with this book.
Full review to come

I'm over 100 pages in and I'm still so very much confused . I hope it bets better as they say it does 

I am looking for suggestions for an epic, more than 800 pages, book to read for booklikes-opoly! This might be last book - and I'm playing my cat. So far, I've come up with:

Fall of Giants by Ken Follett: It is 1911. The Coronation Day of King George V. The Williams, a Welsh coal-mining family is linked by romance and enmity to the Fitzherberts, aristocratic coal-mine owners. Lady Maud Fitzherbert falls in love with Walter von Ulrich, a spy at the German Embassy in London. Their destiny is entangled with that of an ambitious young aide to U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and to two orphaned Russian brothers, whose plans to emigrate to America fall foul of war, conscription and revolution. In a plot of unfolding drama and intriguing complexity, "Fall Of Giants" moves seamlessly from Washington to St Petersburg, from the dirt and danger of a coal mine to the glittering chandeliers of a palace, from the corridors of power to the bedrooms of the mighty. 

The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton: It is 1866, and young Walter Moody has come to make his fortune upon the New Zealand goldfields. On the stormy night of his arrival, he stumbles across a tense gathering of twelve local men who have met in secret to discuss a series of unexplained events: A wealthy man has vanished, a prostitute has tried to end her life, and an enormous fortune has been discovered in the home of a luckless drunk. Moody is soon drawn into the mystery: a network of fates and fortunes that is as complex and exquisitely ornate as the night sky. Richly evoking a mid-nineteenth-century world of shipping, banking, and gold rush boom and bust, The Luminaries is a brilliantly constructed, fiendishly clever ghost story and a gripping page-turner. 

Iberia by James Michener: Here, in the fresh, vivid prose that is James Michener's trademark, is the real Spain as he experiences it. He not only reveals the celebrated Spain of bullfights and warror kings, painters and processions, cathedrals and olive orchards; he also shares the intimate, often hidden Spain he has come to know, where toiling peasants and their honest food, the salt of the shores and the oranges of the inland fields, the congeniality of living souls and the dark weight of history conspire to create a wild, contradictory, passionately beautiful land, the mystery called Iberia.

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon: The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction—but assassins are getting closer to her door.

Ead Duryan is an outsider at court. Though she has risen to the position of lady-in-waiting, she is loyal to a hidden society of mages. Ead keeps a watchful eye on Sabran, secretly protecting her with forbidden magic.

Across the dark sea, Tané has trained all her life to be a dragonrider, but is forced to make a choice that could see her life unravel.

Meanwhile, the divided East and West refuse to parley, and forces of chaos are rising from their sleep.

Any other brilliant ideas for a novel that is more than 800 pages? Has anyone read these four, and can you recommend/not recommend? For now, I am going to go finish Sarum and check back when I'm ready to select the next book!

This is a book I kinda wish I'd read as an e-book, it comes in at 830 pages and is a doorstop of a book (Husband did remark that you could do damage with it).  In a world with dragons almost a thousand years ago an evil dragon was defeated and sealed up.  Legends have built about it and now there are those who believe that all dragons are evil, those who revere dragons, those who revere evil dragons and those who wonder why people are wondering why anyone is worrying about something that is in the past.

Shannon has created an interesting world with varieties of people and cultures and complicated politics.  There is room at the end for sequels but there doesn't need to be any.

It took a while to read but it kept me reading.  It didn't travel with me!!!